By Washington's Blog
Even If The Patriot Act Expires, Government Will Keep Spying On All Americans
Mass surveillance under the Patriot Act is so awful that even its author says that
the NSA has gone far beyond what the Act intended (and that the
intelligence chiefs who said Americans aren’t being spied on should be prosecuted for perjury).
Specifically, the government is using a “secret interpretation” of the Patriot Act which allows the government to commit mass surveillance on every American.
So it’s a good thing that the Patriot Act may expire, but don’t get too excited …
Wikileaks’ Julian Assange said today:
Our sources say that the NSA is not too concerned, that
it has secret interpretations of other authorities that give it much the
same power that it would have had under the secret interpretation of
215 and other areas of the USA PATRIOT Act.
ZDNet agrees … and notes that Congress doesn’t even know about many of the government’s spying programs. And see this.
